For example: Edmund White on Marcel Proust, Edna O'Brien on James Joyce, Mary Gordon on Joan of Arc. The choice of biographer is not obvious — it may even be at first glance surprising — but it is intriguing, and based on some perceived affinity of temperament, vision, or cultural background between author and subject.

Crawford didn’t live to see the publication — and, worse, the filming — of Mommie Dearest, but she has had numerous defenders in the years since, and her new biographer is firmly in the pro-Joan, anti-Christina camp.